Details are unfolding in the case of Latino Skidmore College student, Justin Tavarez, charged with a hate crime for smashing a plate over a white man’s head. The New York Daily News reports:

A college student from the Bronx has been charged with a felony hate crime upstate after smashing a plate over the head of a white man who was sitting at a diner with a black man, police said.

Justin Tavarez, 19, a sophomore at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, became incensed when the two men sat down near him at Compton’s Restaurant in Saratoga Springs about 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, authorities said.

Three fellow Skidmore students – two of them from New York City – joined in the attack on the white man while his black dining companion was in the bathroom, police said.